Congrats to Brandon & Carey!!!

Life is starting to return back to normal :) I (Jody) arrived safely home from Japan (pics to come) and Zach has come home from visiting family in Wisconsin. Surprisingly I had better Internet access in Japan than he did in WI! :)

I hit the ground running when I arrived home on Friday and we shot a great summer wedding on Saturday (for those concerned, I felt AMAZING and was not feeling the jet lag at all until time to go to bed :) in Franklin, TN.

The wedding was beautiful and we are so excited that Brandon and Carey are officially married!!!

A few photos we have pulled so far from the day...

Notice her beautiful bouquet with white and pink roses



Got to have the cool guy photos. No nerdy photos here :) These are some of our favorite to shoot, and the guys always have a great time taking theses photos.

Carey and her dad with Brandon in the background...

We love bubble exit shots. Notice the bridesmaids bouquet on the right with the pink calla lillies. Calla Lillies are my favorite!



A lovely shot of Zach's back... but you can kind of see the set-up we used. Our awesome assistant on the left is David.



...and then a natural photo taken by yours truly...

Carey and Brandon had their summer reception at the Embassy Suites in Franklin, TN

Taking advantage of the light from the camera man! :) I had no idea Zach was taking a picture of me. Really, I promise I was not smiling for Zach! The speech was making me laugh...



He was a dancing machine, my friends...

We love you guys!!!

How we did it!!

So in this particular blog, and in some to come here and there, we will give you the inside scoop on how we did certain shots including all the different elements of what went into getting the shot, like; what type of camera was used, what type of lighting, what settings and so on. So here we go!

We love to share, learn and teach any chance that we get, so this particular blog is all about that! We know that when we first started out shooting weddings we were so hungry to learn anything that we could from anyone that would teach us. So, we want to dedicate this blog to those that are interested in learning some of the cool photography tricks that help make these photos look the way they do. You can't manufacture a great moment between a bride and groom, but if you are there with the right tools at the right time, then you can make a great moment between two people look really awesome!

Here are some lighting behind-the-scenes photography tips. The photo we are going to use today is a very Rock-Star-esc shot that we set up to capture the cool factor of this groom and his groomsmen taken in Nashville, TN. Take a look.

Here is the shot:

This image was taken on June 28th in Nashville the day of Amie and Andrew’s wedding. When you first look at this shot it almost looks like it is not real at all and is instead shot in some fancy studio and the background put in with Photoshop. It also looks like it was taken for a cool band (which when you can make the groom and his guys look and feel like rock-stars, then you have done your job that day!).

Here is how we did it:
First we found a cool spot that had a lot of sky in the background and then positioned the guys there. The shot was taken at about 3 pm on a sunny day, so we put the guys in the shade under a few trees so that they would not be all squinty eyed. Then we got out the big guns (no, not my wife’s biceps).

We bring on location two powered lights called mono-lights that are 500 watts and 1,000 watts each. The only way to get the sky to look natural like that is to shoot a light at your subjects that is equal to, or brighter than the light hitting the sky from the sun. So we aimed this power light at them, turned up the juice to about 600 watts, and bam! This is what you get! It really is about that simple. There are some other technical things to it, but that is how a shot like this is done. If anyone wants details they can feel free to email me @ zach@GrayPhotograph.com and I will answer any other questions that you may have.

Here is the technical info and settings for those nerdy types (like me!):
ISO – 50
F/11
/125 of a second
Canon 5D with the 24-70L 2.8 at 24mm
Westcot 32 inch soft box with inner baffle removed (for higher contrast)
Photogenic 2500 DR Monolight at 600 watt seconds
Powered with the vagabond 2 from Alien Bee’s
All triggered by Pocket Wizard Pro-2’s
Minor contrast adjustments in Adobe Light-Room

Jody leaves Japan tonight and arrives tomorrow evening! I can't wait to have my baby back!

Night at the Bowl-A-Rama

Jody and I had a date night recently (as we do every week) and after two and a half years of marriage it is becoming ever difficult to come up with new ways to romance the pants (no pud intended) off of each-other. So, for this date, we decided to get a little crazy and bike a mile and a half over to the the Franklin bowling alley and see who had the skills and talent to knock those little pins down where they belong!

There was plenty of:

Mostly by Jody :) And plenty of:

Mainly by me. He, he, he!!

We also pigged out on some really awesome bowling alley food, kicked our feet up, relaxed and had some fun!

We ate pizza, chips and cheese and washed it all down with these huge Slurpees! We also both had really fun stomach aches afterward! It was awesome!

Here are some other highlight shots from our evening!

Jody gets really excited while bowling!

The heavy ball is Jody's.

Aren't we sooo cute!

Their are two things about being photographers 1) we can't help but experiment with our cameras often... and 2) We do not trust anyone else to take pictures of us, so we end up having to shoot photos of us individually :( Even though photos together are way more romantic on a date night, when we biked by this area with some cool looking sky we just couldn't help but take a few shots. So we took a few quick photos of ourselves for everyone to see! ;)

Well! I think that about says it all! Until next time! And men, don't forget to romance your wives every day!

Greetings from Japan!

So I (Jody) have internet access! I wasn't sure how great the connection would be and if I would have time to blog, but here I am!

We flew in yesterday (Sunday) around 2pm (midnight Eastern time on Saturday) and then had time to freshen up before we went out for dinner, at yes, an Italian restaurant.

A few quick highlights: Please keep in mind the source - these are from our point-and-shoot camera.... not our nicer ones, hence the lack of quality :) whew!

The view from our hotel room at night!
Krystal and I figuring out our bathroom...





Yes folks, there is a phone in the bathroom...

Well, that'll keep you held over for now :) Off to enjoy our first full day here!

I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane...

Starting tomorrow (Saturday) Zach and I will be apart for 6 days :( I will be traveling halfway around the world to the amazing country of Japan, and my studly husband will be flying to Wisconsin to visit family and spend time with his parents and younger brothers.

So enough about Zach - one problem that presented itself in my overseas travels is that my maiden name is still on my passport!! I had to get my passport renewed and of course, whatever photo is taken I'm stuck with for the next 10 years, so I ventured out to good 'ol Walgreen's putting my hopes and fears in them that they would be able to produce me with a photo I would be proud of for the next 10 years... WRONG!

Unfortunately, when you go to the local drugstore you end up a getting generic passport photo by ghetto point-and-shoot Walgreen's cheap-o camera. See below for point and case:

Comments: The color is OBVIOUSLY off and look like I have some skin disease that turns my skin yellow, and the lighting is horrible, and I'm not even in focus! (No joke! They really expected me to send this off to the passport agency so that when I travel from country to country and get my identity checked, they would clearly be able to see what I look like and make sure I'm not some impostor wanting to go crazy and knock over the Starbucks kiosk until I get my half-caff mocha!)

Now being photographers, there is NO way I can be tagged with an image like that for the next ten years! So I relied on my husband's mad lighting skills and he busted out the goods (in his words) and took a much better shot of me!

-After-

I'm telling you that professional passport photos is where the money is at!

The only bummer about this new passport photo is that I will now have to purchase that half-caff mocha :(

That's it for now! Enjoy reading the blog as Zach keeps this up for the next week (Warning: don't believe everything you read! Just know that Zach believes it to be truth).

Introducing To You....

Thanks everyone for stopping by and leaving comments/sending emails!

A little information about us and how we do our photography is we are all about getting to know the people we work with! It’s no fun when you have a photographer that you met nine months ago show up at your wedding to shoot the most special and intimate day of your life AND you barely recognize/remember them! We loooooove hanging out and getting to know our couples - that has to be one of the best perks about our job.

We want to introduce to you one of our couples! Meet Britt & Allison:



(this is the shot for the parents :)


Lately we have been getting the itch to do a night time shoot here in Nashville, and because we like these guys so much, and they were up for anything, we took them out for a shoot they weren’t expecting… he he he…


First, we started with some shots before evening came...





These two below shots are a great example of how Zach and I shoot. The first one Zach took with our lights, and the 2nd shot I took with just natural lighting at the exact same location.

(Doesn’t Britt look like Dennis Quaid?)

Behind the scenes shot of that location...

And then as it became darker...

Yes, they actually got IN the fountain!! We definitely did not plan the shoot for them to get them in the water, but see what happens when you get fun, and crazy people all together?

We had a blast and they were troopers!!! Ah, what fun!

Looking forward to your wedding Britt & Allison!!!

A New Way of Looking at Things...

Welcome to our new blog! We are officially transferring out of our old blog, so this is the place where it is at now! Everyone make sure to update your RSS feed!

Seeing this is our first post on blogspot, let me give an official introduction of what this blog is all about... or isn't.

We are NOT about:
Boring & horrible photos
Sharing only stuff pertaining to photography
Keeping all our photography "secrets" to ourselves

We ARE about:
Photography that amazes
Sharing our lives - in and outside of photography
Marriage
Relationships
Giving other photographers insight in to how we light and shoot
Shout-outs to amazing vendors who we work with
Much, much more

We hope as we continue to share our lives and what we are most passionate about that you will follow along with us and gain a love for life and a passion for pursuing what you love to do.